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The Local Government Ombudsman has found Cheshire East Council guilty of maladministration over its dealings with the parents of a vulnerable adult. The couple complained that Cheshire East Council failed to follow previous LGO recommendations to complete a comprehensive reassessment of their son. The council has been ordered to carry out a reassessment and pay £500 in acknowledgement of the unnecessary time and inconvenience the parents have been put to in pursuing the complaint.
Dr...

The Culture of Secrecy was again evident at Cheshire East Council’s Audit & Governance Committee meeting on Friday 27 September when Conservatives blocked further discussion on Lyme Green.
Labour Councillor Sam Corcoran proposed that the committee should review whether its recommendations from June 2012 on managing issues arising from the Lyme Green episode had been followed up properly. Particular concerns were over reviewing the planning function of Cheshire East Council when it was considering its...

Local Plan Delayed Again
Towns in Cheshire have been deluged with speculative planning applications since the coalition government introduced new rules to try and boost the economy by allowing housing on greenfield sites. Local authorities can reject housing applications if the sites are not in the Local Plan, but as Cheshire East Council doesn’t yet have a Local Plan, developers can build almost wherever they like at the moment. Cheshire East Council is now working...

Planning Nightmare Set to Continue
Towns in Cheshire have been deluged with speculative planning applications since the coalition government introduced new rules to try and boost the economy by allowing housing on greenfield sites. Local authorities can reject housing applications if the sites are not in the Local Plan, but as Cheshire East Council doesn’t yet have a Local Plan, developers can build almost wherever they like at the moment. Cheshire East Council is...

Council Backtracks Over New Houses in Marginal Parliamentary Seat
Earlier this year the Ombudsman ruled that Cheshire East Council had knowingly and persistently misled the public over a planning application (ref 11/3759N) to change the status of land at White Moss Quarry near Alsager from greenfield to brownfield. The Ombudsman found 5 separate counts of maladministration in the way the Council had approved the planning application, and ordered the Council to engage a lawyer to advise...

£1.2m Overspend in 2013/14
When Cheshire East Council introduced the silver wheelie bin recycling service in 2011 it needed a waste transfer station in the north of the borough. The Council tried to rush through plans to build a waste transfer station at Lyme Green. When those plans went catastrophically wrong the Council agreed to pay up to £40,000 a month to private contractors to bulk up the waste.
Those payments are still continuing nearly 2...

Council Treated Volunteers Appallingly
At the Cheshire East Council meeting on Thursday, Cllr Sam Corcoran presented a report on the demise of the old Crewe & Nantwich Dial-a-Ride and recommended that the trustees of the Charity that provided the service should receive a total of £3,000 compensation for the defamatory comments made about them by a Conservative Cabinet member.
It was not disputed at the meeting that defamatory comments had been made about the...

Labour Supports Localism in Planning
At the Cheshire East Council on 18 July Conservative councillors voted down a motion calling on Cheshire East MPs to take a more proactive stance in relation to planning matters in Parliament.
Several speakers spoke of the damage being done by speculative planning applications on Greenfield sites.
Concern was expressed that the council will be put into special measures by the government so that planning decisions are taken out of its...

Information Commissioner Overrules Cheshire East Council AGAIN
A group of Macclesfield residents has successfully appealed to the Information Commissioner following Cheshire East's refusal to release information relating to the Council’s plans to re-develop Macclesfield town centre. The Information Commissioner has ruled that Cheshire East must disclose all the information requested. A pattern of systematic secrecy is clearly becoming evident in the way the Council chooses to conduct its business.
This is the second...

Engine of the North
The Labour group on Cheshire East Council welcomes any attempt to promote growth. There is now a clear recognition that the coalition government has cut local government expenditure to the bone and that the council needs additional income. The new development company, titled the Engine of the North is intended to ‘sweat our assets more’ (in the words of the Conservative Leader). It is suggested that £100m of council assets will...

A devastating report by the Ombudsman has found that Cheshire East Council knowingly and persistently misled the public. The Council also withheld information from the public and backdated documents on its website, apparently in an attempt to cover up.
During the Ombudsman’s investigation the Council continued to deny that it had backdated documents. Only when the Ombudsman presented proof that the dates on the Council’s website were not the dates on which the information...

Child Protection Services Judged Inadequate
Ofsted, the national body responsible for quality assurance in services for children, recently carried out an unannounced inspection of Cheshire East Council’s arrangements for the protection of children, and found that overall the service provided by the Council is inadequate.
Among the areas assessed, Quality of practice was judged as “inadequate”, the worst category. Effectiveness of the help and protection provided to children, young people, families and carers and...

Living Wage
At the Cheshire East Council meeting in December a motion to increase the hourly rate of the lowest paid workers at Cheshire East Council to a Living Wage of £7.45 per hour was proposed & seconded by Labour Councillors Laura Jeuda and Gill Boston.
The proposal was referred to the Cabinet of Cheshire East Council for further discussion. The Labour group welcomes the decision of the Cabinet to investigate the proposal further....

Crossroads Cuts
Those who care for frail relatives and friends provide a valuable service that eases the pressure on council care services. For the last 22 years Crossroads Care has supported carers in Cheshire by supplying a trained Carer Support Worker who will assume the duties of the carer for a short period of time allowing the carer to have a break. Now, as a result of cuts by Cheshire East Council, that free service...

Public Toilets Likely to be Closed
In a desperate attempt to hold down council tax, Cheshire East Council has transferred responsibility for many loss-making services to Town and Parish Councils, which have had to increase their precepts to pay for the extra services. Now the Conservatives’ plans to devolve these services are beginning to cause problems for Cheshire East residents: the public toilets in Congleton could be closed on 3 June 2013...

Educational Changes are damaging the service Schools can offer to Children with Special Education Needs
The coalition government’s educational policy proposed by Michael Gove and his team at the Department for Education is deeply damaging to the long-term prospects of children in England’s schools. Michael Gove has attempted to force through examination changes which he had to abandon. He has narrowed the school curriculum for state schools. He has pressured schools to move out...

Cheshire East has now announced a formal public consultation on the future of Mountview, running from March 7 until April 25. Join in the consultation being undertaken by Cheshire East via their web site here...

CONGLETON’S ONLY RESPITE CENTRE UNDER THREAT
200 people signed our petiition against the closure of Mountview at a street stall event in Congleton Town Centre on Saturday 16th March. Feelings are running high against this proposal which will deprive vulnerable older people and their carers of an essential local facility.
Local activists Lisa and George Bossons and Ernie Clarke are continuing to collect names for the petition.
A public meeting will be organised in the near future.
Mountview...

Labour Welcomes 5 Year Housing Supply
At the Cheshire East Council meeting on 28 February, the Labour group welcomed the recent decision to approve the 2013 Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA). This document will help defend against speculative housing applications that some communities have had to endure for the past 2 years. The Labour group also urged Cheshire East Council to push ahead with the Local Plan that will provide the certainty that we...

Loan Sharks
There was strong cross party support for a motion tackling ‘Legal Loan Sharks’ proposed by Cllr Sam Corcoran (Labour & Co-operative) at the Full Council Meeting on 28 February.
Cllr Sam Corcoran proposed a motion to last week’s meeting of Cheshire East Council which draws attention to the End Legal Loan Sharking Campaign and seeks to promote affordable credit and ﬁnancial literacy, in particular through credit unions.
Cllr Sam Corcoran said,
‘This motion...